Costume in the Sixteenth Century

Southland Times, Issue 13284, 10 August 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

Costume in the Sixteenth Century

(Hatter’s Gazette). In the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was pasted ordaining ‘that no person or persons, the king’s subjects, witbin this Isnd (Ireland), being or hereafter to be, from and after the first day of May which shall be in the years.of our Lord God 1539, shall ba shorn or shaven above tbe ears, or use the wearing of hsire upon their heads like unto long lockes, called glibbee,/pr have or use any haire growing ou tbeir nper lippee, called or named a orommoal, or use or wear any shirt, smock, kurcbor, bendel, neckerohour, mooket or linen csppe coloured or dyed with saffron, no yet use or wearp in any of tbeir shirts or smocks, above seven yardas of cloth, to be measured according to .the king’s standard, and that also no woman use or wear any kyrtell or cote tucked up or imbroydered or garnished with silk or coached ne laid with usker, after tbe Irish fashion, and that no person or persons of what estate, condition or degree they be, shall use or weare any mantles, cote, or hood made after the Irish.fashion and any person so offending was liable not only to forfeit the garment worn against the statute, but certain sums of mon y limited and appointed by tbe Act. In this Act, and in the order quoted in tbe note, we find mention made of the custom of dyeing the shirts and tunics,with saffron, said by many writers to have existed in Ireland from the earliest period, but without their quoting any anoient authority in support of their statement. Henceforth we find frequent allusions toit ; but it is certainly not mentioned by Giraldus, Froissart, or the author of the Natural History before quoted. In the reign of Elizabeth we find Spenser strongly recommending the abolition of ‘the antient dress.’ Tbe mantle be calls ‘a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloke fora thief.’ He speaks of tbe hood ‘ as a house against all weathers ;’ and remarks that, while the mantle enables him to go ‘privilie armed,’ tbe being olose-booded over the head conceals his person from knowledge on any to whom he is endangered. He also ah ludes to a custom [of wrapping the mantle hastily about the left jartn when attacked, which serves them instead of a target, a common practice in Spain to this day, and probably derived from thence. His objections to the use of (mantles by females are as strongly and more grossly urged ; and of the,long-platted or matted locks called glibbs, be speaks in terms of equal reprobation ; ‘"they are as fit masks as a mantle is for a thief, for, whersoever he hath run himself into that pnril of the law that he will not be known,be either cutte'.h off his glibb, by which ho becometh no thing like himself, or pullttb it so low down over bis eyes, that it ie very hard to discern his thiefisb countenance.’ He concludes, however, by admitting that there is much to be said in favour of the fitness of the uncient dress to 'the state of tbe com t ry, ‘as namely, the mantle in travelling, because there be no inns where meet bedding may be bad, so his mantle serves him then fora bed ; theleather-quilted jack in journeying and incamping, forthat is fittest to be under hie Jahirt of mail, ani for any occasion of sudden service, as there happen many, to cover his trouse on horse bask ; the great linen roll which the women wear to ket p their heads warm after cutting their hair, which they use in any sickness; besides their thick folded linen shirts, their long-sleeved smocks, their half-sleeved coats, their silken fillets, and all (bores', 'hey will devise t-oinc colour for, ritber of necessity, antiquity, or of comeliness.’